She pointed out one of the “baby” posters the other day when we were in the car and passed one. I said “Actually that’s a baby seed but the people who paid a lot of money for those posters made it look like a baby on purpose, because they think everyone who has a baby seed should have to grow it into a baby whether they wanted to or not. And that I think that’s telling lies and shouldn’t be allowed."

Of the 1,636 women who were sent the drugs between the start of 2010 and the end of 2012, the team were able to analyse self-reported data from 1,000 individuals who confirmed taking the pills. All were less than 10 weeks pregnant.

The results reveal that almost 95% of the women successfully ended their pregnancy without the need for surgical intervention. None of the women died, although seven women required a blood transfusion and 26 needed antibiotics.
Of the 93 women who experienced symptoms for which the advice was to seek medical attention, 95% did so, going to a hospital or clinic.

“When we talk about self-sought, self-induced abortion, people think about coat hangers or they think about tables in back alleys,” said Aiken. “But I think this research really shows that in 2017 self-sourced abortion is a network of people helping and supporting each other through what’s really a safe and effective process in the comfort of their own homes, and I think is a huge step forward in public health.”

'It’s also safer than many other medicines that we are allowed to buy from pharmacies without a prescription, such as Viagra in the UK. So why can’t women get abortion pills from pharmacies and manage the process themselves at home if they choose? It might sound radical but it’s already widespread in countries where abortion is illegal, with women buying the pills from online pharmacies. While some countries, such as Poland, are trying to tighten their already strict abortion laws, the advent of mail-order abortion pills means the law is becoming almost irrelevant.'

What Flynn realized is that he could use [ad targeting] to infer that a woman might be seeking an abortion, and to target her for ads from anti-choice groups [using geofenced advertising].

“We can reach every Planned Parenthood in the U.S.,” he wrote in a PowerPoint display sent to potential clients in February. The Powerpoint included a slide titled “Targets for Pro-Life,” in which Flynn said he could also reach abortion clinics, hospitals, doctors’ offices, colleges, and high schools in the United States and Canada, and then “[d]rill down to age and sex.” “We can gather a tremendous amount of information from the [smartphone] ID,” he wrote. “Some of the break outs include: Gender, age, race, pet owners, Honda owners, online purchases and much more.”

Flynn explained that he would then use that data to send anti-choice ads to women “while they’re at the clinic.”

'Our maternity services are amongst the best in the world’. This phrase has been much hackneyed since the heartbreaking death of Savita Halappanavar was revealed in mid October. James Reilly and other senior politicians are particularly guilty of citing this inaccurate position. So what is the state of Irish maternity services and how do our figures compare with other comparable countries? Let’s start with the statistics.

The bottom line:

Eight deaths per 100,000 is not bad, but it ranks our maternity services far from the best in world and below countries such as Slovakia and Poland.

A professional OB/GYN analyses the horrors coming to light in the Savita inquest. Here's one particular gem:

Fetal survival with ruptured membranes at 17 weeks is 0%, this is from prospective study. [...but] “real and substantial risk” to the woman’s life is what is required by the Irish constitution to terminate a pregnancy, *whether or not the foetus is viable*.

So the foetus had 0% chance of survival -- but still termination was not considered an option. Bloody hell.

"Pro-life” groups claim abortion is a serious mental health risk for women. Youth Defence claims women who opt for an abortion rather than carrying to term or giving the baby up for adoption suffer mental maladies such as depression, suicide and other problems. But this is at heart a scientific claim, and can thus be tested. [...]

Psychologist Dr Brenda Majors studied this in depth and found no evidence that ["post-abortion syndrome"] exists. As long as a woman was not depressive before an abortion, “elective abortion of an unintended pregnancy does not pose a risk to mental health”.

The same results were found in several other studies [...] Essentially these studies found there was no difference in mental health between those who opted for abortion and those who carried to term. Curiously, there was a markedly increased risk to mental health for women who gave a child up for adoption.

A corollary of the research was that while women did not suffer long-term mental health effects due to abortion, short-term guilt and sadness was far more likely if the women had a background where abortion was viewed negatively or their decisions were decried -- the kind of attitude fostered by “pro-life” activists."